National proportion of matriculants coming from waitlist

[Curioso06]

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From what I understand, many if not most med schools' matriculating classes comprise of candidates who were accepted from the waitlist and about half of the matriculating classes comes from the waitlist. Seeing as though most med school acceptees are only accepted to one school, is it reasonable to conclude that approximately half of all accepted students come from a waitlist?

Some of the assumptions made toward this conclusion:

1) Half of many/most matriculating med school classes comprise of waitlisted candidates

2) Many/most candidates only hold one acceptance

The national proportion is probably more likely somewhere between 1/4 to 1/2, but I'm curious to see what others have to say about this. The assumptions are rather oversimplifications but are presented as rough estimates.

 

[bearintraining]

it's very hard to make generalizations like this, because ultimately every school does things a bit different. Generally speaking, schools with high acceptances to class size/matriculation is more likely to have students come from a waitlist, or alternatively, over-accepting.

 

[Lannister]

Where did you read that half of most med school's classes are comprised of waitlist candidates?

 

[theGuyWhoBuiltTheArk]

The one school that I asked breaks their waitlist into thirds and says that if you are in the top third you have a good chance. I don't know how this compares to other schools though.

 

[Mansamusa]

A dean from a school I interviewed said that the stats are that half of all students in med school get accepted off the waitlist

(He didnt show us the numbers, but it is what he said)

And I would say that most people get more than 1 acceptance (if they get accepted before April 30th), which is why so many get pulled from the waitlist

 

[MaxPlancker]

Hmm, my intuition tells me that it can't be half coming from the WL.

 

[IlDestriero]

Many schools take few students off the wait list, so I would say no.
However every school is different so you would have to look at it school by school.

--
Il Destriero

 

[Goro]

At my school the movement off the wait list is in single digits....so no, not 25-50% of our class.

 

[rilte4]

From what I understand, many if not most med schools' matriculating classes comprise of candidates who were accepted from the waitlist and about half of the matriculating classes comes from the waitlist. Seeing as though most med school acceptees are only accepted to one school, is it reasonable to conclude that approximately half of all accepted students come from a waitlist?

Some of the assumptions made toward this conclusion:

1) Half of many/most matriculating med school classes comprise of waitlisted candidates

2) Many/most candidates only hold one acceptance

The national proportion is probably more likely somewhere between 1/4 to 1/2, but I'm curious to see what others have to say about this. The assumptions are rather oversimplifications but are presented as rough estimates.

Can I ask how this information would be helpful? Some schools have little to no movement while others have a long history of digging pretty deep into their WL. I'm confused on how some magic number would help the average applicant waiting to hear back specifically from X, Y, and Z schools - each of which likely has their own trends when it comes to their respective WLs.

 

[Mansamusa]

Also, the new MSAR has some self-reported # taken off the waitlist. The highest I've seen was 93 off of the waitlist at Albany.

They might be self reported #s though because I found a few that were deflated and some don't have any number listed

 

[The Knife & Gun Club]

I think its really highly variable. Some schools pull the majority form their waitlist (U Miami is >60% come off the WL) while others barely utilize it (FIU for contrast takes ~10%). Throw in schools where virtually no one turns them down (Like mayo) and schools like West Virginia where they interview and waitlist an absurd number of OOS students and suddenly this becomes just too complex to boil down to a single trend.

If you were to try to simplify though, I guess you'd be kinda right.

In most cases for most MD medical schools a sizable chunk come off the waitlist.

*I dont think you can assume that there is any proportion of students who have no acceptances and are accepted of the WL though. WL movement is compounded by things like students holding an acceptance getting of WL at a better school, students sitting on or coming off multiple WL's, and any role the multiple acceptance report plays in WL movement.

TL;DR Too many moving parts and not enough information to know for sure or guess numbers

 

[rilte4]

i would presume at the point in the cycle those without an acceptance by on a WL are looking for some rough idea of chances. It is not an unexpected notion to do so

True, but as these types of conversations inevitably pop up around this time, I think it's also worth discussing which are helpful and which ones may not be as much. This one is a bit misleading, no? Speaking as an applicant in the current cycle, if someone had said "Your chances of getting off a waitlist will be 50%" without any context whatsoever, I'm not sure that would've alleviated any anxiety at any point in the year (beginning or end). That's just me though.

 

[gyngyn]

Also, the new MSAR has some self-reported # taken off the waitlist. The highest I've seen was 93 off of the waitlist at Albany.

They might be self reported #s though because I found a few that were deflated and some don't have any number listed

The waitlist number is self-reported.
The matriculation data is not.

 

[gyngyn]

True, but as these types of conversations inevitably pop up around this time, I think it's also worth discussing which are helpful and which ones may not be as much. This one is a bit misleading, no? Speaking as an applicant in the current cycle, if someone had said "Your chances of getting off a waitlist will be 50%" without any context whatsoever, I'm not sure that would've alleviated any anxiety at any point in the year (beginning or end). That's just me though.

You are right. If the waitlist has 200 members and the class size is 100, even if the class is half filled by the waitlist, your chances are not 50%

 

[Curioso06]

I would guess that candidates holding multiple acceptances is limited to a small portion of the total population of candidates. I would imagine there's some sort of inversely geometric relationship between the # of acceptances vs. the number of candidates with that # of acceptances. Therefore, the waitlist movement that does occur is probably due to the minority of candidates.

I would hope that in future versions of the MSAR, the AAMC is able to provide accurate date on # of waitlist acceptances, as opposed to the self-reported data that's available now. From what I understand, schools report to the AAMC when they've waitlisted a candidate, so shouldn't this information be available to them already?

I should revise my original conclusion and state that the maximum national proportion of med school matriculants being accepted from a waitlist is about half.

 

[bc65]

One school I'm familiar with admitted one single student off the wait list in a recent year.

The number of students admitted from the wait list has a lot to do with the school's ability to anticipate their yield. Most schools will accept more students than they have seats for, anticipating that a certain number of students will go elsewhere.

 

[Goro]

How the Admissions deans manage to do this year after year and not overbook so that they have to offer free seats (or ask for deferrals) is truly one of the Dark Arts.

One school I'm familiar with admitted one single student off the wait list in a recent year.

The number of students admitted from the wait list has a lot to do with the school's ability to anticipate their yield. Most schools will accept more students than they have seats for, anticipating that a certain number of students will go elsewhere.

 

[bc65]

How the Admissions deans manage to do this year after year and not overbook so that they have to offer free seats (or ask for deferrals) is truly one of the Dark Arts.

I know a school that did have to offer free tuition to those who deferred for a year, not that long ago.

Applicants should be aware that even the very top schools have to admit two or three times the available seats in order to fill their class. Essentially, if you get into Harvard you will likely also get into Yale, along with other top schools, and each student can only go to one school. So, a low yield rate doesn't indicate that a school isn't desirable.

By the way, for most students, the wise financial move would be to refuse the free year's tuition and instead start school immediately. The free tuition for one year ( lets assume, $50,000 ) seems like a great deal, but it will cost you a year's living expenses, plus the loss of your future income for one year of peak earnings. The lost year of income later will be far more than the $100,000 you save now ( i.e. $50,000 plus interest )